Chapter 13
The Old Man
Ten years earlier...
February 1st, 2110
The old man lay underneath the overhanging bows of a cedar tree. The snow had weighed down the branches of the massive old cedar and created a sheltered snow cave at the foot of the tree.
The old man had lived on the mountain his entire life, he had been born in the depths of winter. This was years ago, when winters as cold as the current one were more common than today. As the deer grew into the old buck that humans called the old man, he learned how to survive everything, from human hunters, to wolf packs, to sudden snow storms. The old man had smelled the storm well before any other animal on the mountain and had laid down beneath the cedar tree to wait it out.
The snow had piled around the tree, growing deeper and deeper, until it reached a point where breaking out of the snow cave would require serious concerted effort for an animal as large as the old man.
The old man was only a little concerned by this. The storm was at its peak, and nothing but snow and wind were moving about in the open right now. Furthermore, the old man realized that even if a wolf stuck out in the snow had found its way under the old man's tree, it would be foolish for either of them to fight until the storm was over. A storm of this magnitude tended to override all conflicts and force cooperation or a least a truce until the weather had done as it needed to do.
The old man kept his ears down, because the storm was painfully loud. The old man could hear the occasional creaking sound and the occasional snapping sound as smaller trees gave way to the combination of snow and gale force winds. The sound of the wind overwhelmed all but the loudest of the sounds though and so the old man kept his ears down to protect them.
The old man was not sleeping, but was trying to rest, when Pike stuck his head into the snow cave under the cedar tree and stared at the old buck front of him. Cooper's head appeared in the shelter moments later. The brothers stared at the old man. Cooper counted the points on the old man's antlers in disbelief, confirming what both of them already knew. If they hadn't been transfixed by the image of the great old buck in front them, they would have stared at each other in disbelief.
They had been hunting the old man. And now, wounded and battered and almost hypothermic again, the brothers had found their quarry. And they were entirely unable to do anything about it.
The old man stared at the two humans. The old man knew that if necessary he could escape these humans by standing up on all four legs and bolting. But that would involve dumping the entire load of snow on the lower branched onto the old man and it would further mean bolting straight into the storm that these humans were fleeing and the old man himself was enduring.
The old man did not like the idea of fleeing. It might become his only option, but this close the old man could still rely on his antlers if required. Satisfied with his options for the moment, the old man snorted once at the humans and then was still. Let them decide if they were brave enough to share the shelter with one as large as the old man.
The brothers were still staring at the old man. Snow was caked to all sides of them, so much so that one would scarcely believe there were wearing fur rather than tanned leather. The parts of their faces that were exposed were cherry red from the snow and wind and cold. Both brothers were shivering, and neither had taken the time to bind their wounds in a manner that they were satisfied with in the long term.
Cooper looked back at the storm.
"The storm is eating up our tracks. I don't think Dad can track us in this. We should stop here and bind our wounds properly. This burn on my throat still hurts. I'm amazed that I can talk again." He said quietly and gently.
Pike emulated Cooper's tone when he answered his brother, "You still sound like somebody stuffed your voice in a gravel merchant's bag."
"We should stop here," Cooper said, "I think the old man is letting us."
Pike was quiet for a minute or two as the brother's huddled at the entrance, and then answered his brother by carefully crawling into the shelter. Cooper followed as soon as Pike was settled.
The old man smelled the humans as they entered, to take stock of them. They smelled of leather and dirt and grass. They smelled of blood and sweat and that distinctly human smell. They smelled of smoke and pine needles. They did not smell of oil or coal. They did smell of gunpowder, but only a little bit. They did not smell of cows or stink of rotting dairy products. They didn't smell of all the chemicals that civilized humans carried.
The old man was satisfied. Most animals differentiated between two breeds of humans now. There was the quiet human, the hunter who was harder to smell, harder to hear and seemed to move like the other animals. There was also the angry human. The angry human was loud unless absolutely still, every footfall was an earthquake. The angry human also stank of oil and smoke and chemicals and rotting meat and dairy. The angry human moved like a rabid grizzly over the land. If not for the fire stick that the angry human used, letting him kill from so far away that no other animal had a defense against it, no angry human would ever catch dinner.
These humans were quiet humans. They would not be a threat until the storm was gone.
Pike and Cooper settled in on the east side of the shelter. The old man took up all of the west side and intruded a little onto the east side. The artificial cave created by the cedar boughs was nearly packed tight as the brothers positioned themselves facing each other. The three large bodies in the space heated it rather effectively. Cooper took off his outer coat and placed it against the opening on the south side to block the wind, leaving a small opening to aid air flow.
Once he had done that, Cooper turned back and stripped off his under coat and leather shirt so that Pike could clearly see and bandage his neck wound. Pike looked the wound over carefully. He gently pressed against the discolored skin where the boy's younger brother Dolf had scalded Cooper.
"I don't think we should bandage it." Pike said, "The skin is really delicate from the burn and it will probably stick to any bandage I lay on it and tear off when the bandage is moved. I would say you just press snow against it to deal with the burn and leave it at that."
Cooper shook his head, "He threw boiling water on me, this is at least a second degree burn. We both are lucky not to be in shock from our wounds. I agree on the idea of not bandaging it. But ice will be too cold. It might accelerate shock, and either of us could still go into shock from this."
Pike nodded, "Good point, Give me a second I'll get my water skin. We can probably get away with a cold wet compress in here, the heat in here is pretty reasonable."
With that Pike began to rummage around digging out his water skin, quickly used the water to soak a soft leather rag and passed it to Cooper. Cooper tested it gingerly against the burned area of his neck.
"That feels good, I guess we'll find out if this was a good idea by the time the storm ends."
Pike nodded, "Elder Fergus never taught me what first aid to administer if one received third degree burns in a winter snow storm."
"I get the feeling that nothing we do fits easily into an elder's lessons." Cooper answered, "Let me take a look at your back."
Cooper left the compress gently on his neck as Pike swiveled in place and pulled off his two coats, his brigandine armor and leather shirt. The bullet had punched through all four layers but had done the most damage to the shirt on the bottom. The leather shirt was ripped and bloodied and hardly looked like a shirt anymore.
The bullet had just grazed Pike's back, cutting a bizarre and arrow straight line along Pike's right shoulder blade. Cooper examined the cut left by the bullet. It was a superficial wound for the most part. The wound was bleeding visibly, and Cooper quickly wet a leather rag and began cleaning his brother's back. The boys had been out in the storm for less than a half hour, but a large portion of the blood on Pike's back had either dried or frozen. As a result, the cleaning took longer than Cooper expected.
As Cooper cleaned, Pike looked at the wall of snow quietly.
"I'm sorry Coop. You're right, I should have told you about our Dad. I didn't know the whole time you know. I mean I suspected. But I blocked a lot of the memories out. It was a bad time and a bad place. When mom escaped with you and me, I can remember that. I remember the running and I remember the woods and the dark and fear. Other memories from that time are less clear, you know. It's like my brain won't let me remember it properly. Do you remember the night after Rikki died?"
Cooper didn't answer immediately, he just kept cleaning.
"Coop do you remember the night after Rikki died?"
"I remember everything." Coop answered quietly.
"My brain almost shut down that night. It tried to forget everything so I wouldn't have to deal with it. I didn't let it. I fought it and I won. I started to remember more from before we came back to the Redwing Tribe, and I started to make sense of what I was able to remember."
Cooper finished cleaning Pike's back and the wound itself and tapped Pike on the shoulder, "Move your arm for me, I need to see if this needs stitches."
Pike nodded and moved his arm in a slow circle around the shoulder joint. Cooper nodded, "The wound is opened wide enough I think I need to stitch you up. Ready?"
"Go ahead." Pike answered.
Cooper removed a needle and thread from his belt pouch and began the process of stitching Pike's wound closed.
After a moment of silence Pike continued, " I had a pretty good idea where I thought we had run away from by then. So for my first vision quest I decided to go test my theory."
"We're supposed to sit in one of the sacred groves and meditate for our first vision quest, nothing more." Cooper said.
"I know, so I chose a sacred grove way out far from a village so that nobody would be likely to check. And then I went there, and from there I headed to Winter Wolf territory to see if my memories were right. About half way there I..."
Pike stopped and coughed. He opened his mouth and made a few sounds as though trying continue and then went quiet again. Cooper kept stitching quietly. Finally Pike began speaking again.
"I killed him, but I can't remember most of what happened. I get haunted by that hulking Vanya's face every time I take a vision quest now."
"You told father that Fyodor Vanya locked you in a metal cage and dragged you back to Winter Wolf territory." Cooper said.
Pike twitched, "I just moved the order of the events around. I didn't want him to know that I had sought the Winter Wolves out. He would have read too much into that admission. There was an iron cage. And Vanya did drag me around. He was taking me back to the Fort. I was already in Winter Wold territory though, and he never got to the fort. That's the only thing that I changed when I told father."
"How much can you remember?"
"Maybe remember isn't the right word," Pike said, "It's more like sharing a cave with a sleeping grizzly bear. You know its there, but you don't breath loud, you don't look at it, you don't shift your weight. Because if you wake it up, you aren't getting out of that cave alive. Am I making sense?"
"Only in the abstract sense," Cooper answered, "You know me. I always need to stare at the sun. It's not in my nature, I will either triumph or I will be consumed. I know other people don't look at things like this, but it's the only way I know how to live."
"You're a warrior Coop, bold and fearless. Father was right to call you cooper hawk. The Cooper's hawk perfectly suits who you are. I don't know that I was named right. I seem to have more in common with a city rat, surviving at all costs. You have a nobility to your thoughts Cooper. I have to settle for pragmatism."
The old man had been quiet on his side of the snow cave while the brothers were speaking, even the sight and smell of Pike's blood hadn't generated any alarm in the great old buck. But in the silence that followed Pike's final statement the old man snorted sharply, shifted his head and raised both ears turning them repeatedly to catch any stray sound.
The brothers went silent and waited.
The report of a pistol echoed through the storm, far enough away that it was slightly muffled by the wind, but not far enough away to make the brothers feel safe.
"Boys! I know you're out here." Maxwell Winters yelled from somewhere down the hill, "You should come back to the school house. It will be better that way. Because if you don't come back with me and take your place amongst the Winter Wolves, I am going to marshal all my allies amongst the civilized peoples and we are going to march that gun wielding, truck driving army up to the Redwing village. And we will burn every hut and kill every wannabe Indian there until I find the two of you. I'm only making the offer here. If you don't come back now, everything that I do to those crows you pretend are your family will be your fault not mine."
The old man turned his great head towards the brothers and locked eyes with them as the brothers stared at the coat covering the opening that lead out of the shelter. There was something in the old buck's eyes that conveyed a message. The old man did not understand human language, but he could read the meaning in the gunshot and the tone of voice. The old man could read the situation in the sudden posture change of the two humans sharing his shelter. And the brothers could read the old man's answer in the tilt of his great head and the cold certainty of the buck's gaze.
Do not go out into the storm. This is a hunter calling for his prey. Do not go out. You cannot win.
Pike swiveled back face Cooper. Cooper's needle still dangled from the unfinished stitching on Pike's back. Pike quickly signed to Cooper.
He'll do it anyways. He hates Uncle Redwing. It's a family vendetta older than us.
Cooper signed back.
But he'll use it as an excuse. It will be our fault. We can't hold back the full weight of any city state's army. How can we hope to survive multiple city armies? They will scour the land and find the home village and we will all die.
"What will it be boys? Protect your homeland or sacrifice it out of pride? Which would a Redwing do?" Maxwell called and then laughed loudly enough that the boys could catch bits of the laughter even through the storm.
Pike sharpened his gaze.
I am not going back there again. I am not going back to his hell. We will find another way.
Cooper looked at his brother.
What other way is there?
Pike shook his head.
We will find one. I am not letting either of us go back there. You don't remember. I remember. We are not going back!
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